lets get social

hey, i'm jordin!

Welcome to our blog

My Wedding Was Different Than I Imagined

Mar 22

That’s right. I spent 11 months planning my wedding, and it wasn’t what I thought it would be. There are so many things that occur on your wedding day that no one tells you about. Things that, as a never-before-wed human being, you wouldn’t know. So I am going to share these things in hopes […]

browse by category:

My Wedding Was Different Than I Imagined

That’s right. I spent 11 months planning my wedding, and it wasn’t what I thought it would be. There are so many things that occur on your wedding day that no one tells you about. Things that, as a never-before-wed human being, you wouldn’t know. So I am going to share these things in hopes to give you a little *heads up* for your big day.

It’s Over Already?

Your wedding day will FLY by. People say this, and if you’re like me, you probably brush it off. Thinking, yeah, okay? I am starting to get ready at 9AM and no one is even leaving until midnight. It can’t go by that quickly. Wrong.

From the moment you wake up you are in wedding mode: getting the venue set up, getting your hair and makeup done, giving gifts to your bridesmaids, etc. If I could do it all again, I would set a 30mi to an hour in the morning to have been by myself. To reflect on the day ahead and how grateful I am for everyone working so hard to make my day so perfect. Give yourself time to meditate, go on a walk, journal, whatever your thing is. Make time for it.

Once you are all dressed and ready, you will take your photos, and then it’s time for the ceremony. You walk down the aisle (for me, it was almost like I was outside of my own body watching the moment happen). You exchange vows and ta-da you’re married! Everything you’ve been planning for months has happened – you just married the love of your life, now you get to celebrate.

The dinner/speeches go by quickly and if you’re lucky you may get to attend your cocktail hour. (I didn’t, because we were taking photos the entire time). Once that’s all over you get to dance the night away with your closest friends and family. And then it’s over! The biggest day of your life! All over!

I have the same advice for later in the day. After you’ve said I do, take time 30 min, or whatever you can spare to be with your husband/wife. Alone. Be together, talk about what just happened, your excitement, your love, whatever. Just take 30 min to be with just the two of you. This day if about you, anyway. If it’s 5PM at this point, you’ve already gotten through most of the day, and the dancing/drinking portion goes by even faster than the morning did!

You Mean I Don’t Get To See My Mom?

Hire a planner!!! Even if it is just a day of coordinator. When I planned out my wedding I truly did not realize the amount of work it was going to take to get everything set up the way I wanted to. I didn’t think about who was going to be doing the work. I thought as long as I can get ready and my bridesmaid’s don’t have to do anything, it’s totally fine. Wrong. The groomsmen did a lot of work, but more than them was my immediate family. My parents, brother and sister-in-law spent 5+ hours setting everything up.

I saw my mom once for about 5 minutes before I got my hair/makeup done and 5 minutes before I walked down the aisle. That’s my mom! I was really disappointed that I didn’t get to share “that moment” with her. I never really thought about something like this happening before it actually happened. How would I have known?

Depending on the amount of set up you have to do I would highly suggest hiring a planner/day of coordinator. It’s your day, but it’s also a very important day for those closest to you. You want to spend time with them, and for them to have an amazing day as well. You aren’t going to want to spend your day setting up/stressed about the functionality of the day. That’s what a planner is for.

You Didn’t Notice That?

Yep. So, it’s true, no one cares about the one sign you spent 20 hours making for your big day. No one cares about the linens being the perfect hue of pink. (Here are the top palettes for 2018 weddings to help you out though!) No one cares about how meticulously thought out your floral arrangements are. A lot of the hours; blood, sweat and tears you put into your planning, go unnoticed.

Don’t get me wrong, the planner and designer in me doesn’t really care. I have to have things the way I want them or else I won’t be happy. But the amount of headaches I got during the planning process because I didn’t know if we would have a go-cart the day of. Wasn’t worth it. The time I spent curating the perfect playlist didn’t matter. Our DJ played his own music during the dancing portion anyway (I told him he should).

If I could go back, I really would map out the important parts of my day. Outside of design. Being with my family. Feeling calm. Everyone having a good time. Having 1 on 1 time with Charlie. Then I would worry about the aesthetics. I know it’s hard to not get wrapped up in the look of your wedding. I mean, you’ve probably been planning this thing since you were 12. But that will all come, and if you hire amazing vendors, they will play their part.

You shouldn’t have to worry about the flowers looking amazing if you hired an amazing florist. Your stationery will go perfectly with the theme of your wedding; because, you customized it to be exactly what you wanted. The gown you love and chose has been altered to fit you perfectly already. The photos are going to be amazing because your photographer is incredible. Your videographer is going to get the shots you want because you already sent them a list months ago about what to shoot.

All of your planning is going to pay off and work out perfectly. Now all you need to do is make sure you appreciate every moment of the biggest of your life. It’s never (hopefully LOL) going to happen again.

It Was Still The Best Day Ever

Even with all of that; my wedding was amazing. It was so incredible to see how may people showed up to celebrate with Charlie and I. To see how well my ideas/visions came to life. To know that I get to spend the rest of my life with the person I love more than anything.

I hope these few “ah-ha” moments help with your big day; I hope that they make you slow day for a moment to really take it all in. To hold what is near and dear to your heart close.

Like this:

Related

Hi Jordin, I related to SO MUCH in this post. Although my wedding was a 3 day affair (way. too. tiring.) those three days also flew by. I totally agree with you on having a wedding planner – the need to just have a few moments by myself here and there as the bride was so important to me. Luckily even though I didn’t have a planner I tried not to stress too much about the planning and let my mom and cousins handle quite a bit of it. But still, if I’d outsourced that, we all could’ve spent more time together, had more memories together. Well, I do hope future brides read this and seriously follow your advice! Have a great day!

Hi Sneha! It is crazy how fast everything goes by! Especially when you consider the amount of time you spent planning! I am sorry that you felt the lack of time with your loved ones on your special day, too! But it’s not something you ever could know without experiencing it or having someone tell you! Hopefully our advice does get to help someone! 🙂